Battambang – Siem Reap boat journey. One of the great boat journeys of SE Asia.
It had to be done.
7.30: All aboard. 18 of us, packed in. Luckily, boat has canopy – already hot.
Boat powers along river, surges past fishing villages, boats, people fishing, washing, laundering. We pass temples with signs saying ‘No fishing’ in Khmer and take loads of photos. Area quite prosperous; concrete bungalows among bamboo huts, most with tv aerials, cars parked next to roads.
8.30: river still wide but we are slower now. Occasional revs of engine as we go over sandbanks. People on sunny side pull down shades – it’s getting hot.
We pass villages with tall stilted huts, naked children swimming in the water or paddling. They shout and wave at the boat then jump into the bow waves as they splash against the bank. But our wash is fierce; a family with small children are tip-toeing onto a small boat, trying to keep their balance. Whoops, whoops, bugger. The boat capsizes and the family is chucked into the water. We just power onwards while they pick themselves out of the water.
We pass rubbish – a whole tree-trunk, lot of branches, another branch with plastic bags impaled on every twig. The river in flood must be a mighty animal but right now it is fast becoming a dribble.
9.30: Now going very very slow. There are lots of other boats on the river, which twists & turns. Our wash reveals how shallow the water is – 1 or 2 feet in places. We pass a big, wide blue wooden boat, loaded up with sacks of something heavy – rice? It’s stuck; Mum and Dad are behind the boat, in the water, pushing, a teenager at the front, is pulling, sometimes using his back to try and manoeuvre the boat into deeper water. A toddler stands at the front of the boat, thumb in mouth, watching, wide-eyed. He is naked. Another 2-3 years and he, too, will be pushing.
10.30: We pass a small fishing village. It is VERY poor; possibly the people are nomads. Hard to say, Houses are just bamboo poles with bits of wood, sheeting or nylon as ‘walls’. We go very slowly now; the engine over-revs; crowds of children gather to wave and smile and shout hello. They only have to walk to keep up with us. The boat grounds; we hear scraping sounds and feel the boat judder. The engine revs up again, our man-at-the-front-with-the-pole pushes harder; we are free. Then it happens again. We go into reverse – a loud, harsh engine rev that partly spins the boat around. We are free but progress is slow.
We ground again. Our second guy wades thigh-deep in the water to the back of the boat, pushing from that end now. Perhaps we should get out??? Perhaps we had too much breakfast??? We are now across the entire width of the river.
A Cambodian man goes to the front, picks up his small pink rucsac and heads for the back of the boat. Is he planning an escape??? A Dutchman jumps into the river and helps push. That is all that’s needed – within 10 seconds, the boat shifts. We applaud.
11.30: and we are going so slowly that there is no cooling river breeze. The pilot is an expert, easing the boat along, wary
of sudden scrapes on the river bottom. The propeller clunks, hard. Bad news? We glance backwards at the engineer but he looks unruffled. River narrows but doesn’t deepen. Banks are 5-6 feet high, covered with deep green vegetation, bushes and pale pink convulvulus. A fisherman stands chest-deep in water; our boat heads for him – this is a guide to deep places! He moves out of the way, stands and grins at us. There was no danger – things happen slowly on this part of the river. We pass more nomadic fisherman, their small orange nets hanging from bamboo poles. The banks are muddy, covered with tall grasses and ferns; on the other side are bushes.
We round another bend in the river and move out of the shade. The sun’s heat is fierce. It’s slightly wider now and we pass ducks. Three small children, two of them naked, one wearing a pair of too-large men’s pants which he keeps pulling up, wave from a long, high wooden stiltway. The river bank is full of people here, though the huts are basic to the point of nonexistent. We pass a sunken boat – oh dear. Then a small fishing boat poled along by a boy no older than 10. His older brother sits paying out the lines, crouching, muscled and tanned, in the middle of the boat. He doesn’t look up – he is concentrating.
We move on. The slight river breeze disappears again as the riverside vegetation gets thicker. A pair of herons flies away, their long white wings and elegant legs standing out against the green. We pass a fish-trap, a maze of branches set in the middle of a square of poles; there are many of these. As well as heading for deep water, our pilot also has to miss floating boats, sunken boats, fish traps, nets, floating rubbish and remnants of floods, such as complete tree trunks.
We go within touching distance of the bank. The mud is steep and eroded, tree roots stick out, some fibrous, others large and wooden. In places, giant spider webs lurk for the unwary. Spider webs? No, they are discarded or abandoned fishing nets.
Pampas grasses fill the opposite shallower bank. We edge along, creeping past fish traps. The man-with-a-pole is constantly vigilant, standing at the prow, feeling with it, or using it to push through shallow water, helped by the engine’s revs.
The engine stops. There is a delightful moment of peace and calm as the boat drifts downriver, but bangs and clanks from the back show that something is wrong – it wasn’t a stop to rest our shattered ears. It takes 5 minutes to put things right and we are off again.
The river is now between 15-20 feet wide. The boat goes against the left-hand bank and thorny branches thwack against the boat. We move back, hastily.
12.30: We pass more nomadic villages – such poverty. Shelters are made from bushes, with sheeting, wood, anything – or nothing. But one has a well-stocked village shop under an awning stretched over poles. A woman comes out as we pass, carrying a small child and a long yellow balloon,
1.00: The bank gets small, the area spreads out & we pass another village. Boats look like small Noah’s Arks with a large superstructure in the middle, made of anything & everything – straw matting, wood, asbestos, polystyrene, metal. Both prow and stern are tilted and most boats are painted blue..
At last the river becomes deeper, engine noise resumes to normal & breeze picks up. We are starting to go fast! No, engine noise resumes intermittent / loud roar as we edge around a fishing trap & head straight into the bank. Sudden jolt as we touch bottom. Engine roars, pole guy rocks from side to side as he pushes, we follow his movement so that the whole boat rocks. No luck. No, we’re off – a few hard shoves & we are amongst the fishing traps. Now the engine has stopped. Peace at last… but why?
The engineer seems to be ratcheting the engine to a different angle, perhaps so that we don’t run aground so much. Time will tell. Or maybe they are trying a repair…?
The birdsong is beautiful – lots of trills and ripples of sound as we gently rock in the middle of the river. The ratcheting continues.
The journey is starting to take on dimensions of ‘I’m a celebrity, get me out of here.’ People are sweating, smoking and one man next to me has consulted his travel documents & is using his mobile phone. Who will crack first??? A few are scratching mossiebites or flapping at flies, which appeared as if by magic when we stopped. People stand, stretch, scratch…
Mr Pole is poling us down the river – it’s very pleasant. A fish jumps, there are lots of bubbles; we drift… Venice, anyone?
There is a clonk – someone is hitting the engine – hard. The engine starts up and birds fly from the banks.
Slowly the river widens, we speed up, the air freshens. We see small wooden boats towing funnel-shaped dragnets which reach 50ft into the sky, their bottoms full of river rubbish and plastic bags. The nets have been made to be dragged along the river or lake bottoms. Lake? Are we nearing Tonle Sap?
1.30: At last! The boat slows down, pulls in to a floating restaurant – our break-time. We have been going for 6 hours. It is a complete floating village; even pigs and chickens are kept in floating cages. Narrow plankways lead from home to home. I go to the loo. It is simple and effective – a rectangle cut into a piece of wood, one foot above the water-line.. Well, at least we have the privacy of a cubicle.
2.00: The area becomes less poor. We pass some well-built houseboats, painted blue, with plants outside adding a welcome splash of colour. Everything seems organised; water hyacinth is in its place, channels are marked and I spot a school (though locked up). We see five uniformed girls, rowing to school – a new slant on the school bus.
The boat stops again and drifts into the bank. Man-with-a-pole and pilot wade to the back; clearly something serious is afoot. MWAP opens a locker and drags out a new propeller. Perhaps the original one has suffered one hit too many. Whatever, within ten minutes the new one is installed and we continue.
People are looking tired; several fall asleep, girlfriends wrapping themselves around boyfriends in uncomfortable-looking poses. The dozing men sit with arms folded, occasionally twitching or jerking.
3.00: We pass a village with a floating library and school donated by UNICEF. The impression is of fierce poverty but stability, though everything depends on fish. If the fish supply were to dry up…
It has become very flat and – around a bend, the area opens out completely and we are on the lake. At last. Fishing nets stretch for miles, occasional gaps allowing boats to pass. People stretch and stand up, enjoying the increased breeze as we power across the lake.
The boat leaves the lake and starts to slow down. We turn into a major channel and the atmosphere changes. There are suddenly a lot of tour boats, with comfy individual armchairs, its inhabitants looking regal. But we are tough, we are rugged, we have survived.
Twenty minutes later we land.
It took almost 10 hours.
dip.
dip.
I wonder if I could get a job modelling hats? Or tea-pot cosies?
and very cold
